2000AD publishers Rebellion have acquired all the comic titles owned by TI Media, reuniting publications dating back to Comic Cutswith the titles they purchased from Egmont in 2016. This means virtually every classic British comic title published out of London over the last one hundred years is now owned by Rebellion.

The deal does not include titles owned by Dundee-based DC Thomson, Look and Learn or Dan Dare Corporation, who own Eagle and Dan Dare.

Robot Archie / Lion original cover artwork (1965) by Ted Kearon from Lion 15 May 1965The title headers are publisher’s photocopies (to save them being drawn every week)Indian ink on board.

It means the Oxford-based company now has the biggest catalogue of English language comic book properties in the world, a deal which unites Billy Bunter, Robot Archie, the Steel Claw, Janus Stark, Sexton Blake, and titles such as Comic Cuts, School Friend, Valiant, Look-In (although re-publishing most of Look-In‘s TV-inspired strips will require licenses with third parties) with Judge Dredd, Roy of the Rovers, Adam Eterno, Black Max and titles such as 2000AD, Misty, Thunder, Buster and many others.

Rebellion now also owns the hugely admired “The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire“, which was not sold with the Look and Learn title.

Rebellion claims Comic Cuts – which held the record for the most issues of a British weekly comic for 66 years until The Dandy overtook it – gave the comic book medium its name.

“Rebellion’s reputation is not just as an innovative and forward thinking comic book publisher, but as the first company to respect and do justice to the extraordinary legacy of multiple generations of artists and writers who developed the comic book medium in this country,” says Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion.

“It gives me great pleasure to secure the future for this extraordinary archive and I am incredibly excited to able to bring back into print so many lost treasures.”

The archive includes an adventure comic called Marvel, which ran from 1898 to 1922, but is unrelated to the American comic publisher.

downthetubes understands there was some fierce competition for the archive with bids from Titan Comics and others before a deal with Rebellion was struck.

Needless to say, this is exciting news and we look forward to hearing more details from Rebellion in coming weeks.

Just some of the titles Rebellion own, including those acquired from Egmont in 2016

Rebellion now also own all the characters published in titles such as Whizzer and Chips, some of which had been owned by IPC/ Time/ TI Media, some by Egmont as part of a 1990s deal struck demarcating character ownership between IPC and Egmont.

Young / Educational Titles

Although IPC published a number of nursery and educational titles, Look and Learn Ltd owns these nursery comics: Jack & Jill, Playhour, Robin, Swift, Harold Hare’s Own, Once Upon a Time; and also all the educational mags like Bible Story, The Children’s Newspaper, Finding Out, Look and Learn, Treasure, World of Knowledge and World of Wonder.

Comics archivist and publisher Steve Holland notes that there were a small handful of strips that were not part of the deal when L&L bought the nursery titles, including, importantly, “The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire“; also a few characters L&L bought have subsequently been sold on.

Do Rebellion now own TV Comic, Countdown and TV Action?

No. Polystyle, who published those comics, was absorbed by London and North Surrey Newspapers, which was absorbed by the Mirror Group.

All the original strips published in those titles, including “Countdown” drawn by John M. Burns, are owned by the Mirror Group (although the artwork resided in the Express newspapers archives in 2008, but its whereabouts is now a mystery).

Of course, if you wanted to publish the strips based on TV shows that appeared in TV Comic or Countdown, such as The Telegoons, UFO and Thunderbirds, you’d have to license from both the Mirror and the TV company that produced them.

The only exception to this is the Doctor Who strips in those titles, whose rights were purchased by Marvel UK in the 1990s, whose assets were then bought by Panini.

TV Century 21 No 1 (1965) with free gift Special Agent Identicode decoder and free gift from No 2 – and Special Agent Badge.

Similarly, City Editions, who owned TV21 and Lady Penelope, was absorbed by Express Newspapers, although TV21‘s ownership may be a bit muddled as it was absorbed into Valiant.

So we can expect to see reprints from Look-In very soon?

That will depend not only on Rebellion’s ownership of the Look-In title (and any art that has survived), but negotiations with the owners of the TV properties that featured in the comic.

The cover of Look-In, cover dated 11th August 1979, featuring Sapphire and Steel

Some copyright owners – ITV, for example – may be more inclined to negotiate deals than others.

However, it appears the rights on some shows you would think were owned outright by ITV, such as Sapphire and Steel (brought to life in Look-In by Angus Allan and Arthur Ranson), are a bit murky, and the owners have previously been reticent about negotiating a reprint deal.

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The founder of downthetubes, John works as a comics editor, writer, as Creative Consultant on the Dan Dare audio adventures for B7 Media, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival.
Working in British comics publishing for over 30 years, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Magazine and Babylon 5 Magazine. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz, published on Tapastic; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood for digital comic 100% Biodegradable.